I wasn’t planning to write anything about it last week, but the football game opposing France and Ukraine during the Euro was interrupted by torrential rain. This was the first according to commentators.
Now, many events related to the Fête de la Musique have been canceled in the North and East of France – including Valenciennes, to my despair. This never had taken place for over thirty years the event has existed.
In less than a week, French people have witnessed weirder climate canceling or postponing two of their favorite events. What was the probability ?
Could somebody please tell my fellow Frenchmen that the probability of this happening will increase as much as we keep on doing nothing ?
Climate change will completely disrupt our daily lives and might as well endanger our very lives… It’s time to act.
Time to go full scale on efficiency and conservation, time to go ahead with hundres of gigawatts of renewables in Europe…
As you present the problem from a French point of view, it made me think of one thing my brother told me about climate change in Nepal (he travelled there to study the impact of a a developping road system in remote area on local economy an tourism).
When he talked about climate change in this area, the people seemed to welcome this phenomenon as global warming implied (at least in their minds) milder temperatures, thus, an easier way of life.
So it seems we still have a lot of work to do to convince other nations (and maybe starting by our own governement…). The “carrot” could be the green growth but we have to make sure it won’t benefit to developped states only !
That’s funny you are saying that as I would have thought it would be a huge problem.
If the water contained in the third poles melts, there will be no more water downstream, ie. in India, China and Pakistan…
This would be a major trigger for unrest in the region I would say… 🙂
Regarding green growth, some developing countries are going full speed ahead on it. Cf. my post on Bangladesh and how it goes solar 🙂
Well, this will be a huge problem eventually, on that we agree =)
However, as always, people tend to be short-sighted: “a few more degrees? Well, not bad when winter in those valley are particularly harsh”
I read the report he wrote and that contains interesting elements regarding cultural points of view over development:
– first, it is another assertion that in some developping countries (or for parts of the population in developing countries), environnment and sustainable developpment are low priorities, the first one being the development of economy, sometimes at all costs… For example, he met the administrative staff managing a natural reserve. The staff told him that the annual number of entrances in the reserve by tourists is limited. However, he could notice that this number was largely exceeded (mainly because each tourist has to pay a $1000 or $2000 fee to enter)…
– second, that we should learn to have more hindsight over the notion of “development”. For example, he reported, among other things, that more and more tourists and trekkers in Nepal complain about the fact that now, house roofs are covered with metal sheets, which “spoils” the “postcard” of traditionnal houses in nepalese valleys. True, but metal sheets might come useful against bad weather…
The same for the construction of a road in a valley, perceived by trekkers as an abomination, but by locals as easier communications with main cities…
I am not saying we have to give up any attempts to convince countries to adopt sustainable development. However, we should sometimes not condemn them to quickly. In the meantime, what we could do is a greater technical cooperation and assitance to bring solutions that improve living conditions and economy while being compliant with sustainable development.